


Ashes, Ashes

by beautifullyheeled



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - His Last Vow, Goodbyes, M/M, Minor Divergence, Not A Fix-It, Pining Sherlock, airport
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 15:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2313824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifullyheeled/pseuds/beautifullyheeled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>God these words, why does it have to be this way. It should have been different.</p>
<p>Sherlock and John parting on the tarmac. Short and bittersweet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes, Ashes

_You’ll look after him, won’t you…_

God these words, why does it have to be this way. It should have been different.

_Because you chose her…_

He’d gave his word. His singular vow to protect them. How much he had lost in his time abroad. How dulled from torture and near death. But John was safe then.

_Because you saved my life…_

John had misunderstood, as he was meant to. He swallowed the lie to move on, just as he had numerous times before. John knew. It was always about him.

_You were a doctor who went to war…_

You miss the battlefield. It used to be your mind; ED, PTSD, Psychosomatic tremor as well as limp. Depression. And then you smiled. It didn’t fall away all at once, but you recognized some of that in me too. So you fought for me.

_I don’t mind…_

Of course you didn’t. Neither did I. Always casually touching, weaving in and out of one another’s pockets. Felt like old times.

_There’s a proper time to die…_

He’d vowed to keep John safe, them safe; for John. Always John. He’d died once before, almost died in exile. This time he knew his expiration. Just one more small lie. Just one more chance to keep him safe.

_And when it comes, one should embrace it, as a soldier…_

 

“…since this is the last conversation I’ll have with John Watson…” He’d asked Moriarty for a moment of privacy, how was Mycroft any different. His brother needn’t be privy to this. Besides, he already knew. Had known. _‘Should we expect a Happy Announcement by the end of the…’_ Sherlock pushed the thought aside to finish his statement. “…would you mind if we take a moment?”

He steadies himself for the push off. The last words, yet again. This time he hoped done right. Sherlock wanted to leave John ready to move on, accepting that Mary had just enough of the hint of danger to keep him feeling alive.

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes.” Leave him with your name. A small intimate detail that only three other people knew. _‘Hamish… John Hamish Watson… if you are…’_ Again, not the time for this. Not now. Not ever. _“… if you are looking for baby names.’_ Don’t. He’ll see. John’s a soldier he knows what this means. “That’s the whole of it, if you are looking for baby names.”

They were pretty sure it was a girl; John would have a daughter to raise soon. A beautiful sweet elf, with golden curls and sweet rosy cheeks that held laughter. It was worth it, this. He swallowed as they said nothing and everything in those few quiet moments.

“Actually, I can’t think of a thing to say.” John finally broke the quiet with those words, closing the paragraph at the end of their story. “The Game is over.”

“The Game,” Sherlock bit his lip and quieted. “Is never over, John.” There is a season to everything, my friend. Your daughter, your wife; they are your playmates now. I’m but a memory to be stored in the final pages of a dusty book on your shelf. One to be taken out and read to grandchildren later on wistfully. “There are just new players. The East Wind takes us all in the end.”

_‘But where did Grandmere go, Mycroft?’ He’d asked foolishly. ‘The East Wind came. Took them all.’_

“It seeks out the unworthy… it lays waste to all in its path.” Sherlock took a breath and snuffled as he looked away; knowing what the hyperbole meant. “Plucks them from the earth.”

_‘Brother mine, why must you taunt the East Wind? Do you wish to overdose? To ruin your parent’s lives by your indomitable stupidity?’_

“That was usually me.”

“So, where are you actually going?” John huffed a laugh, as he always did when confronted as of late with uncomfortable truth. “How long?”

“Eastern Europe…” He looked away again, pointedly taking a fraction of a second to school himself. For John, this was for him. No one else. Little truths to hid the bigger ones; he could do this. “Six months, Mycroft estimates… he’s never wrong.”

“And then what?” John asked. Sherlock could see the walls reforming, and it was good. It would protect his blogger. His friend.

“Who knows?” The small lie in the truths. Just enough to quell the tension Sherlock saw forming at John’s shoulders; the little tell of his fingers gripping the gun no longer there. John looked past him and to the horizon giving him a curt nod as his jaw worked then partially relaxed. Sherlock knew this was the last moment he had before John closed off entirely.

_‘I find it difficult, this type of stuff…you were the best and wisest man I had ever known.’_

“John, there’s something I should say. Something I’ve meant… to say… for quite a long time…” Sherlock looked back to him, he wanted to remember this. No matter the reaction, he’d needed to say it plainly while he still had the last few vestiges of himself together. “Since it’s most likely we’ll not meet again, I might as well say it now.”

_‘… the best friend of the bravest and kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing…we have a lifetime ahead to prove it…you and me against the world…’_

“I love you.” Sherlock watched John’s face unfold even as he heard the engines start signaling his departure. He bridged the three steps as if he were a dying man begging for relief... which he was, funny that… and took John in a half embrace kissing his cheek before ghosting the last words he’s ever say to John across his ear. “To the best of times, John.”

Sherlock kissed the barely there scruff on John’s cheek memorizing this last detail before pulling away swiftly to embark on the jet. He had no idea if John said anything as the roar was too loud. 

He’d leave it to his imagination.

**Author's Note:**

> Non-beta'd. Written quickly, but wanted to share before it got lost in the shuffle of short fics. Again.


End file.
